In the first chapters we have read, hair seems to play a huge role on how "good" a woman looks and there seems to be a little colorism.
In the very beginning, one of the things that the women notice on the porch is Janie walking with her hair all the way down her back and their response is, "What dat ole forty year ole 'oman doin' wid her hair swingin' down her back lak some young gal" (2)? From the tone of voices, we can get that they are envious of Janie and that turned to resentment because they want what she has. There is obviously something about how long and relatively straight Janie's hair is that makes the other women want to have the same style of hair.
Hair is used as a measure of how "good" a woman by the men as well. When Janie is just walking by, the second thing that the men notice is, "the great rope of black hair swinging to her waist and unraveling in the wind like a plume" (2). While the overalls were not seen as fashionable or decent in any way, somehow her hair still remained emasculate. The next moment where we can see how men rate women based on their hair is when Hicks tries to woo Janie and then later on he tells Coker, "Tain't nothin' to her 'ceptin' dat long hair" (38). That seems to be all most people think about when they look at her and Joe Starks is aware of that when he makes her wear a headrag around the store. He doesn't want anybody else ogling her so he makes her tie up her wondrous hair. That is just one way that Joe is controlling.
Where colorism shows up is when the guys and the girls are acting out courtship and then Daisy Blunt shows up. It is said that, "she knows that white clothes look good on her, so she wears them for dress up" (67) and, "her hair is not what you might call straight. It's N* hair, but it's got a kind of white flavor" (67). Not only is this implicitly saying that "white" clothes look better which shows that although there are not any white people in Eatonville, racism still very much exists. In addition, to go along with that, the hair that white people have is "better" than black hair. That also brings in a little bit of colorism because Daisy is seen as the most beautiful out of the other three women and that is in part due to her hair.
Thus, while racism seems to not be inherently ground up into Eatonville there are still the stereotypes present that white somehow looks better than black so they rank people based on that.
Very interesting post. I also noticed this strange obsession with hair that Hurston has, and how we see it through the other characters in Eatonville. I like the term "colorism" that you brought up, and it definitely describes Daisy's envy of Janie.
ReplyDeleteI was also intrigued by the amount of stuff about hair but I kind of brushed it aside. Yet, now that you mentioned it, I totally agree. I never thought about exactly why Janie's lovers wanted her to tie her hair up with a hair rag, but thinking about it again makes complete sense to their need of control. Makes it show how much people might value their hair in society.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting take on the meaning behind everyone commenting on Janie's hair. When comparing this novel to the other two books we have read so far, it seems as if racism takes a step back in this novel. I really like how you talk about "colorism" because it definitely describes how people take race into consideration when describing Janie.
ReplyDeleteI think this point is interesting in that it also kind of extends to the present in terms of hair being a measure of beauty in general for women but also in the way that much of society views black women's hair and the requirements society holds for it to be deemed beautiful which are inherently racist and based on white beauty standards
ReplyDeleteThese are all good examples of "colorism" in Eatonville, with regard to how hair is spoken about specifically, but the epitome of this internalized-racist viewpoint in the novel is Mrs. Turner, who, in Hurston's depiction, has made her internalized racism a kind of religion--and she tries to make Janie a convert.
ReplyDeleteShe is definitely defined by own character in these parts of the book and I can't help but equate it back to Invisible Man. In both novels, character's outside appearance far outweighed their internal persona. Hurston does a good job objectifying Janie in a way.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think Hurston definitely uses hair symbolically in the novel in the examples you gave. Also, when Joe forces Janie to cover it, I thought of it as a symbol of oppression. When Jody dies, one of the first things Janie does is to take the rag off, symbolizing her freedom from his misogynistic oppression. More recently though, hair was a way that the grave digging people identified bodies. Only instructing to give coffins to white corpses, they used hair as a way to differentiate the races which goes to show that even in death, no one was free from racism.
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